Best Visual Effects: "Will it be Apes or Aliens, Murph?"
Friday, February 13, 2015 at 10:00PM 
It's not my imagination. I swear it's not. This year's Oscar competition is unusually tough to predict in quite a few categories . That's a refreshing change of pace. You might think this one is easy "Best Visual Effects" since it usually is (well, apart from the Golden Compass year. That was a shocker).
You might think that since Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) didn't win the prize so they kinda owe this series. Indeed, everyone seems to be in awe of the advances in motion capture technology that come with the series, particularly the way it's served as a new medium for the art of acting. But not so fast. The Apes series which dates back to 1968 and is composed of 8 films, has typically been an underperfomer with Oscars. To date the series has won only 4 nominations and 1 honorary Oscar (for makeup before the category existed) in its entire history. This despite starting as a mammoth zeitgeist hit and winning very strong reviews twice over during its rebirth this decade.
This one requires some extra thoughts and video so let's investigate after the jump...
The Nominees:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dan Deleeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill, Daniel Sudick
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett, Erik Winquist
Guardians of the Galaxy
Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithandi, Jonathan Fawkner, Paul Corbould
Interstellar
Paul J Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter, Scott R Fisher
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crossible, Cameron Waldbauer
The new Apes movie, which was a major success with audiences and critics, couldn't even manage a nomination for its astounding production design. What the hell was that about? So can it win the gold for visual effects despite their strange standoffishness about the series?
The thinking ape's competition is fiercely well-armed with super strength, helicarriers, bizarre mutations, cyborg arms, and tree trunk bodyguards. My guess is it's going to be a tight tight race (wouldn't a tie be fun?) between the apes and the Guardians of the Galaxy but AMPAS's natural indifference to both Apes and Superheroes -- only two superhero films have ever won gold in this category: Superman (1978) and Spider-Man 2 (2004) -- allowing the nominee with the most prestige and the most nominations in other categories to triumph.
Will Win: Interstellar
Could Win: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Should Win: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Reader Comments (9)
Actually, that was Spider-Man 2 (2004) that won (the first one came out during a LOTR year), but your point there is taken. I'm also guessing Interstellar, especially after that BAFTA win...
thanks for the catch Richter. That is what I meant! ;)
After watching those videos, the 'Apes' work just seems miles above the others. It could be partially due to the fact that it was the only one that really explained the work that went into how VFX took the concept/design into movie reality, but what I got was 'here's all these ways in which we had to refine existing technologies and invent new methods to depict the apes, and oh by the way we did all the same things the other ones did in order to make the CG backgrounds look like actual locations.' (Not that the other VFX are not good, just they seem like stellar examples of work within an existing art/craft as opposed to pushing the boundaries of the craft).
Should have been nominated: Godzilla.
Something else that makes this category harder to predict this year is that none of the nominees is a Best Picture nominee. For the last six years in a row, the winner has been a Best Picture nominee (and has won the Cinematography prize). It feels this year more like a Visual Effects category from the 1990s or something. The only one I've seen is Guardians of the Galaxy, so I don't know which I think should win, but I too am predicting interstellar for the reasons Nathaniel gives.
Sorry, I should have said in brackets "and has won the Cinematography prize five of those times".
I actually was impressed with The Golden Compass's visual effects.
This year I think Interstellar will win.
Oh, dear God! I saw Captain America just because it made your top ten and I almost died of boredom. No shirtless scenes, no bulgeness, no sexual tension between Evans and Mackie.
A complete waste of my time.
I really want Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to win the Visual Effects awards, but I just know that Interstellar is going to take home the award (which really stinks) because Apes got robbed against Hugo back in 2011 and they deserve to have their revenge!